Same Name - A Cautionary Tale

Joseph Canham (1857-1939) lived in Swanton Morley, Norfolk, England, married Jane Mangan in 1884 and proceeded to have 5 lovely daughters between 1886 and 1896. And then there was one son, Alec.

Canham Family @1914 - Mable, Ethel, Louie, Joe, Addie. Front - Dessie, Jane, Alec

My mother called him Uncle Alec and understood him to have been adopted. She had no other information about him. I couldn’t find him in any birth, marriage or death records in the area which was odd. In 2013 I came across a tree on Ancestry that included Alec. So I contacted the owner of the tree who provided more details. Sue Freeman’s grandfather was Edwin Canham, son of Absalom who was a brother to Joseph Canham (my great-grandfather.) She told me about the book, “Our Knickers Were Interesting” written by Daisy Raynor about life in Swanton Morley at the turn of the century. She claimed the book suggested Alec was actually the son of one of Joseph and Jane’s daughters. Sue said her grandmother was rather ‘tight-lipped’ about it but that the family hinted that the assumption was correct. The assumption further was that “Beattie” was the mother. Beattie was Beatrice Louise, who my mother knew as Aunt Louie. She was the oldest of the five girls. Sue also knew that Alec’s actual name was William Henry. No one knows how “Alec” came to be used. In the 1911 Census, there is a “Henry” age 5 living with Joseph and Jane Canham in Swanton Morley, their “nephew.” This surely must be Alec.

1911 Census

Using the name Henry I searched the England Select Births and Christenings on Ancestry. A Henry Canham was baptized 14 May 1905 in Harrow-Green, Essex, England (near London – where several Canham family members were living.) His mother: Beatrice Canham. No father is listed. I thought this was proof that Beatrice Louise was truly the mother of this boy. I sent for the birth certificate. While I waited weeks for it to arrive, I mourned for this young woman and her little boy. What a struggle to have to pretend your son was your brother, and watch him being mothered by another. My heart was really saddened by this tale. I wrote up their story and posted it various places.

Index found at Ancestry.com

Then the birth certificate arrived. William Henry Canham was the son of Alice Beatrice Canham!! NOT Beatrice Louise Canham! Alice was Joseph’s youngest sister, so when I found Henry in the 1911 census listed as ‘nephew’ to Joseph and Jane – that was correct. Now I had to scurry to change all the information I had uploaded as truth, since it was absolutely false!!

Now this doesn’t change the fact that a young woman, only 19 years old found herself in a ‘predicament’ and deserved the same anguish I felt when I thought it was her niece. I mourn for her loss in many ways. We can’t know what happened to her, nor how she managed after the birth of her son, and giving him to her brother to raise. She did marry 11 years later, but so far I can’t find any mention of other children, which is all the more a sadness. But from all this leaping about thinking I’d made a ‘find’ I learned a valuable lesson: Don’t rush to conclusions!